Google has announced an additional set of features aided by its Gemini chatbot and language model to be added to its workspace suite. Applications ranging from Docs, Sheets, Slides, and even Google Chat, will now feature AI-supported elements based on the Gemini chatbot and LLM. The additions further support Google’s consistent efforts to implement AI elements within its customer-facing applications and digital solutions, since the company has focused all of its energies on the AI and ML space. The ongoing rivalry and tech race between Google and the tie-up between OpenAI and Microsoft also adds weight to these developments as the tech giant seeks to add further value and utility to its existing trove of offerings by leveraging its research into AI and productivity tools.
From summarizing text to composing crisp emails with just simple notes, Google Gemini’s additions to Workspace will serve as an important factor that furthers the utility of these applications. Google also launched a few features that will cater to enhanced AI safety and security, given that threats and vulnerabilities to AI systems as well as other aspects of shared computing have been on the rise. From premade templates to detailed assistance in specific tasks, Google’s new AI features in its Workspace suite are intuitive and competitive when it comes to applications utilizing AI for productivity.
Google Workspace and Gemini: An Overview of the New Features
The features Gemini adds to Google Workspace will enhance productivity and usability.
Google Workspace has included a variety of features and updates across various platforms to make tasks simpler and more intuitive for its users. The Gmail application will now feature a “Help Me Write” option that will enable users to compose professional and legible emails by utilizing Google Gemini’s AI writing capabilities. This feature will work with a single click and generate an entire body of email text. In addition to this function, another feature that lets users polish their content will also be introduced, helping them put together emails and well-written pieces of text from a simple composition of a few notes and rough sentences. Given that Gemini is a multimodal AI chatbot and LLM, tasks such as these will be rather straightforward and bring enhanced productivity to users deploying these versions of Gemini in their workflows.
Similar AI features are also present in other applications, such as Google Docs, where a “Tabs” feature will allow users to collate and organize information within a single document instead of compiling numerous different text files and searching through Google Drive for relevant information. Furthermore, Docs will also have better-suited full-bleed cover images, enhancing aesthetics and presentability. Google Sheets, too, will witness user-friendly updates that enable access to a new table feature to promote data analysis, organization, and simplistic tracking of information within a given spreadsheet. To make the platform more effective, several templates and other pre-set options will support this.
An AI-Supported Productivity Suite: Instant Translation, Pricing, and Availability
Gemini’s multimodal capabilities will be useful within Google Workspace’s scope.
Besides the applications such as Google Docs, Sheets, Gmail, and Slides, Google will also be introducing Gemini within Google Chat. Besides summarizing conversations on Chat, Gemini will also enable instant translations for messages and support over 500,000 members in groups. The same feature will also be available on Google Meet, where users can access instant automatic caption translation for over 69 languages, entailing 4,600 language pairs. The note-taking feature on the application has also been introduced, allowing users to take notes and transcribe meetings, much like other alternatives such as Otter.ai. This add-on to Google Chat and Meet will be priced at $10 a month and will be available to existing users of Gemini Business and Enterprise.
Google has also turned its focus to providing better safety and security features to its users on its cloud platforms, such as Google Drive. The firm has introduced an experimental security feature that entails post-quantum cryptography to provide an extra layer of safety to existing folders on their storage drives. This, too, will be an add-on and will be priced at $10 in addition to existing subscription fees. All of these new features will only be available to subscribers of Gemini Business and Enterprise, both of which are priced at $20 per user per month and $30 per user per month, respectively. Google has been actively exploring other experimental offerings, such as NotebookLM, which has been an ongoing project for quite some time now. These efforts indicate the firm’s AI-first policy, which has been the driving force behind the firm’s efforts to create consumer-facing AI applications.
The Scope for AI Productivity Applications
AI can aid productivity by reducing the extent of mundane tasks performed by humans.
AI has often been part of the ongoing debate between productivity and organic human effort. While AI has its benefits in streamlining operations and aiding its human users to perform better, critics often cite the dehumanization of professions and the prevailing risks of excessive automation to the economy. Regardless, it must be understood that most AI protocols, such as Gemini, even in their limited aspects, only serve as adjutants to human roles and serve to automate only the mundane aspects of human tasks. By taking care of these aspects in certain jobs, AI advocates argue that AI helps reduce cognitive overload and helps humans focus on the actual processes that require human attention and intuitive capabilities.
FAQs
1. Will Google Workspace’s AI features become available for everyone?
Google Workspace’s new AI features will be available to subscribers of Gemini Business and Gemini Enterprise.
2. Will Google Workspace’s new Gemini-aided features be charged extra?
The features such as the experimental post-quantum cryptography and the auto-translation capabilities for Google Meet and Chat, will be charged $10 extra for each service.
3. Are Google Workspace’s AI features available?
Yes, Google recently launched its AI features for Google Workspace, making it a great choice for productivity-focused users.